What lies behind us and lies before us are small matters compared to what lies right to our faces.

Wednesday, 12 June 2013

the "info/dis-info" endless cycle of circular logic divided by zero

I was hoping to change topics today, but, there is still much buzz around Edward Snowdon and the things he's brought to light, and a few things I realize I had not yet said on the topic in yesterdays post. I'll start with something I realize is incomplete, the Metadata from my phone does not include 'cell tower locations' which the government's metadata most likely does. This is not a 'pin-point' accurate reading of your location, but rather a radius on a map that you were likely in at the time. For a demonstration of this, turn off GPS on your smartphone and open the maps application. It will display a circle (or at least it does on my Android phone). Your real location should be somewhere in that circle as that is the approximate coverage of the cell tower you are connected to, and I suggest 'should' because I have personally seen this to be inaccurate at times where I was physically completely outside the circle (I had 1 bar of reception at the time). The size of the circle varies based on how populated an area you are in because the tower can only handle a certain number of active connections, and because tall concrete structures tend to bounce signals in funny ways. This means, the Governments data on your location is more accurate when you are downtown, and extremely inaccurate while you are lost in the woods... So do not buy the excuse that they need this data to find you when you are lost in the woods, a hunting dog would do a better job following your scent from wherever you parked your car and began your misguided nature hike. I am not certain of the exact timeline, but I think we invented dogs before cell towers.

Sure I've read stories and heard rants that GPS data gets sent to the carrier even when your phone is off and even when the battery is dead, but no sufficient explanation as to how that works, so until I am otherwise convinced, I consider that to be fear-mongering paranoid mis-information at best. I also think it was Alex Jones who originally said it. I'd look it up, but it's not worth the effort, and I don't really need to state much other than I don't personally believe it, and I'd rather not raise mis-information up the Google PageRank™ system. Feel free to try and change my mind about this if you wish.

I am now reading suggestions that the leaked documents could have been a honeypot. That doesn't make the documents any less disturbing because if they are authentic fakes they raise even more questions than answers. Are they meant to overstate present NSA programs, hence fearmongering the public into a frenzy so that they are willing to accept this level of monitoring when it actually does happen? -OR- Are they understating present NSA programs as a means of gauging public reactions just in case the truth actually did leak? -OR- Are these the exact wordings of a program already in place at the NSA, but placed into unofficial slides meant to build plausible deniability? Because that's the funny thing about honeypots: they are meant to escape, sometimes as a test to internal security or policy, and sometimes as a test to see who's trying to hack you and test firewall security. I could keep asking questions all day about why you would deliberately fake top secret documents, and maybe that, in itself, was the true purpose: create a plateau where the truth seekers get stuck trying to digest the plastic cheese while, ultimately, 'the patriot act' and continued 'state of emergency' within Amerika allow for these types of things to go on behind the scenes under an infinite number of names.

'Is PRISM real or imagined?', is not the relevant question... 'Could a program like this exist?' is the proper phrasing, because if it could, it more than likely does, whether it's called PRISM, Boundless Informant, or project ear herpes does not matter to the end result. Do these 'top secret spy apparatuses' lie? Do they then go on record to lie about lying? Do they then say 'national security' when they can't think up a good lie? YES to all of these. By the time the FOIA request paperwork is processed all we'll have is a page of blackened lines of text containing the occasionally legible 'the' or 'and' which only proves somebody has something to hide somewhere and we are no closer to knowing the what, where, or who, or even for that matter the true why. We instead are left to speculate on the why while never actually getting back to who, what, or where. In the end it is much more about you accepting being fucked by the rooster than it is about the rooster being in any actual danger.

The digital age has no 'ultimate security setting' and it never will. Anybody who tells you differently is either selling a security software, or legislating away your freedoms. Security on any and every level is a compromise of freedom, there is no avoiding that fact. The most secure computer in the world, is the one that is still inside the manufacturer's sealed box (and if it was shipped to you, that still has your name, address, phone number, email address, and customer account number in plain text and encoded into a 2D bar code printed on it), everything beyond the point of opening that box becomes a compromise to your digital security.

That is the unfortunate illusion of security (digital or physical), the slider control does not go all the way to 0% nor 100% because neither number is attainable, nor workable... If half of the country were spying on the other half of the country (and vice versa) would there be peace, or would there simply be more paranoia? Regardless of your chosen answer, would there be freedom?

I don't think complete anarchy is the answer either, because I actually believe anarchy would break down faster than (true) capitalism, or (true) communism, or any other system in between that has ever been in place (except that feudalism/zionism might break down even faster than anarchy in present days). All systems are corruptible, and must eventually be completely reset, which is where we are at.

The most workable scenario going forward is one with reasonable transparency that is not so large that even it doesn't know who's doing what, and that holds currency creation as it's most valued asset over and above creating legislation. Which degree of capitalism vs socialism is irrelevant so long as that slider is not 100% in either direction, and so long as the election process actually means something.

The ultimate of all decisions will most likely come down to Amerika v. America where on the one side World War III is both openly declared and ends on the same day and nobody wins (but those who knew and planned this all along), or on the other side where the Second American Civil War breaks out, the consequences of which are much more hazy and uncertain. It brings a certain elegance to to "Agent Smith's" cryptic statement "We're not here because we're free, we're here because we're not free", doesn't it?.

And I say 'most likely' simply because I believe there are many other places that have a significant role to play in turning the Government back from being an unwieldy large monster, to something more manageable.

4 comments:

...except....laws exist to ensure against this kind of thing, and oversight committees to make sure they are obeyed.

As warm-and-fuzzy as it may feel for the tinfoil hat folks to imagine themselves as Will Smith in "Enemy Of The State", the fact remains: if the 3 letter agencies don't follow the existing laws, they get more legislative meddling and a tighter grip on their funding.

See where I'm going with this?

So long story short: 3 letter agencies = easy target (after all, who really expects them to discuss their work? they're intelligence agencies, for crying out loud). As a result, any fruitbat with an axe to grind can pee in the well and make themself a public martyr for it.

Congress is supposed to be part of this oversite yet I am finding mixed congressional opinions on this fruitbat every third headline.

Either somebody is not doing their job, or somebody is breaking the law. But in neither case do these sound like acceptable practices.

I am back on jury duty as to the information and source at this point. Deliberately faked truths, genuinely faked lies, or glory seeker with a death wish are all viable options... But I feel all of these still miss certain depths. I have a lot to still read...